• Every deer must be registered within 48 hours and before processing. Phone registration is no longer available — register online, in the MN DNR Licensing app, or at a walk-in station.
• Physical site tags are gone: a harvest is now site-validated in the app or on a printed validation form before the animal is moved.
• CWD sample submission is mandatory in the 2026 surveillance block on the opening weekend of the firearms season, 7 and 8 November. The surveillance block rotates clockwise, covering every DPA by 2029.
• A new carcass disposal rule replaces the old carcass movement restrictions in the CWD management zones, and DNR will no longer provide dumpsters.
• The B season firearms licence has been eliminated: the statewide firearms licence is valid in any area opening 7 November and in any area open during the late southeast season.
• Hunters may now apply for both an antlerless lottery permit and a special hunt permit, and preference points accrue separately for the two.
• The rifle/shotgun boundary was repealed by the legislature in 2025; a county in the former shotgun zone may pass an ordinance to remain shotgun-only.

Firearms

Regulations p. 79

• At least .220 calibre with centrefire ignition.
• Loaded only with single-projectile ammunition, soft point or expanding.
• Smooth-bore muzzleloaders of at least .45 calibre; rifled muzzleloaders of at least .40.

• Muzzleloaders loaded at the breech — a black powder revolver loaded through the cylinder is not legal for big game.

Archery and crossbow

Regulations pp. 79 and 96

• Bows with a pull of at least 30 pounds at or before full draw.
• Broadheads with at least two metal cutting edges, barbless, at least 7/8 inch in diameter — expandables count if they are 7/8 to 2 inches at or after impact and function barblessly.
• A hand-held mechanical release, drawn and held by the hunter's own strength.
• Crossbows: shoulder-fired, at least 42 foot-pounds at ten feet, bolts at least ten inches long. Legal throughout the archery season on an archery licence, throughout the early antlerless and youth seasons for any licensed hunter, and throughout the firearms season for any licensed hunter.

• Possessing a firearm while bow hunting for deer, unless authorised under the Minnesota Personal Protection Act.

Muzzleloader

Regulations pp. 79 and 99

• Rifled muzzleloaders of at least .40 calibre and smooth-bores of at least .45, loaded from the muzzle.
• Magnifying and holographic red-dot scopes, without a special permit.

• Possessing any other firearm while muzzleloader hunting, beyond an unloaded cased or trunk-stowed firearm, a shotgun with No. 4 buckshot or smaller, a .17 or .22 rimfire, or a handgun under the Minnesota Personal Protection Act.

Legal Shooting Hours

Regulations p. 80

Shooting hours for big game are half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Fluorescent Orange

Regulations p. 39

Blaze orange or blaze pink on the visible portion of the cap, if worn, and on outer clothing above the waist — sleeves and gloves excepted. Camouflage patterns count if at least half of each square foot is blaze orange or pink. Required of every hunter and trapper afield during the open firearms and muzzleloader deer seasons, an archer included. A fabric or synthetic ground blind on public land must carry a blaze orange covering visible from all directions, or a 144-square-inch patch on each side.

Sundays

Regulations, which print no Sunday exception for deer

Minnesota sets no Sunday restriction on deer hunting: every season runs each day it is open.

Bag limits

Regulations pp. 80, 85 and 87

• The statewide bag limit for deer is five; the statewide limit for legal bucks is one, except in DPAs 643, 645, 646, 647 and the other areas p. 85 names.
• A legal buck is a deer with one antler at least three inches long. A fawn buck — a button buck — is not a legal buck.
• The permit area's own designation caps the statewide limit: bucks-only, antlerless permit lottery and either-sex areas allow one deer; the others two, three or five.
• Deer taken in the early antlerless season and the late CWD season do not count against the statewide five.
• Legal bucks may be tagged only by a firearms, muzzleloader or archery licence — not by a bonus or disease management permit.

Party hunting

Regulations pp. 83-84

A party is two or more licensed deer hunters, all afield, hunting together at the same time, and all using firearms or all using archery. A crossbow hunter may party with archers if they hold an archery licence, and with firearms hunters if they hold a firearms licence. Any member may take a deer for any other member with an unused licence valid for that deer, but the licence holder must be at the site of the kill and must validate the harvest before the deer is moved.

Youth hunters must take their own deer: party hunting is not allowed on a youth licence, and a youth licence cannot register a deer somebody else shot.

Baiting

Regulations pp. 82-83 and 93

• All bait must be completely removed for ten days before hunting.
• Liquid scents, sprays, salt and minerals are not bait if they contain no food product — read the label, because many contain grain or sugar derivatives.
• Standing agricultural crops, food plots and orchards are not bait; a crop reintroduced and piled where you are hunting is.
• A first conviction costs a year of deer licences, a second within three years costs three, and a trophy deer scoring over 170 doubles it.

• Hunting deer over bait is illegal statewide — grains, fruit, vegetables, nuts, hay or any food placed by a person.
• Deer feeding and deer attractants are banned outright in thirty-seven named counties, from Aitkin and Anoka to Winona and Wright.

Registration and validation

Regulations pp. 84-86

Validate at the site of the kill, in the MN DNR Licensing app or by marking the printed validation form, before the animal is moved. Then register within 48 hours and before the deer is processed — online at mndnr.gov/buyalicense, in the app, or at a walk-in big game registration station. Phone registration has ended. Antlers must stay attached until the deer is registered, and the head must stay attached to the carcass or to one quarter.

Trespass and access

Regulations pp. 81 and 118

A landowner deer licence obliges the holder to allow public hunting on the land, except on the first Saturday and Sunday of the season; hunters still need permission, and the landowner still decides access.

Regulations pp. 84-86

Every deer must be reported within 48 hours of the kill and before the deer is processed.

• Site-validate at the kill, in the MN DNR Licensing app or on the printed validation form, before moving the animal
• Then register online at mndnr.gov/buyalicense under "Harvest registration"
• Or in the MN DNR Licensing app
• Or at a walk-in big game registration station — look for the orange sign
• Phone registration is no longer available

Regulations pp. 88-89 and 92

Chronic wasting disease has been in Minnesota's wild deer since 2010. Eighteen 600-series permit areas make up the CWD management zone, and from 2026 the DNR runs a rotating surveillance block — the south-west this year, clockwise round the state, every DPA covered by 2029. Inside this year's block, submitting a sample is mandatory on the opening weekend of the firearms season.

• In the 2026 surveillance block — DPAs 213, 214, 215, 218, 219, 234, 237, 238, 250, 252, 253, 270, 272, 273, 274, 275, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 286, 288, 289, 290, 291, 294, 295, 296, 299, 671 and 685 — a sample must be provided from any deer a year or older within 24 hours of harvest on 7 and 8 November.
• Register the deer before sampling: the sampling station will not register it for you.
• Staffed stations run 9am to 7pm on the Saturday and Sunday and 9am to noon on the Monday; self-service stations are open around the clock on all three days.
• A trophy deer taken on 7 or 8 November must still be sampled — through a partnering taxidermist, a self-collected sample, or a mail-in kit postmarked within 72 hours.
• Carcasses from the CWD management zone may leave it, but must go to a refuse hauler, a landfill, or be left on the private land where the deer was taken with permission. Deer taken to a Minnesota processor or taxidermist, and deer with a not-detected result, are exempt.
• Carcasses of any deer, elk or moose from outside Minnesota may not be brought into the state, beyond boned or cut-and-wrapped meat, quarters with no spine or head, hides, teeth, antlers on a clean skull plate, and finished mounts. A head may come in only if delivered to a licensed taxidermist within 48 hours.
• Results are posted at mndnr.gov/cwdcheck; the DNR contacts hunters directly only for a suspect or positive result.

• Deer permit areas are not counties, and this state is resolved against a shipped boundary layer rather than by county. If that layer will not load, the pin falls back to its county and finds no permit area at all — there is no county-to-DPA crosswalk to fall back on, because the DNR publishes none. Check mndnr.gov/hunting/deer/map.html if the app cannot name your area.
• The boundary layer is the DNR's own bdry_deer_permit_areas from the Minnesota Geospatial Commons, generalised to about 200 metres to keep it small. Close to a DPA line, trust the DNR's own map rather than this one.
• The DNR's GIS layer and the printed regulations disagree about the metro zone by one day: the layer gives DPA 601 a firearms season of 7 to 30 November, the printed table on p. 95 gives 7 to 29 November. The printed digest is the source here, so this app closes the metro season on 29 November.
• Antlerless permit lottery areas are shown as antlered-only for firearms and muzzleloader hunters, because that is what the licence is worth without a drawn permit. If you drew one, the season is either-sex for you and the app cannot know it. Archery hunters and youth take either sex there without drawing.
• The lottery application deadline carried here is the DNR's usual early-September date and was not confirmed against a printed 2026 deadline. Check mndnr.gov before you rely on it.
• Per-DPA antlerless permit quotas are printed on the DNR's own map rather than in the digest and are not carried here — they run from 25 permits in some areas to 2,000 in DPA 259.
• Special hunts — the several dozen park, refuge and metro hunts drawn separately — are not in the season table. They have their own dates, areas and permits.
• Minnesota's peak breeding date is a window midpoint. The DNR says deer "mate from November to early December" and names no peak; the rut meter carries 18 November, the middle of that window.
• Minnesota publishes no open statewide parcel service, so there are no property lines on the map here.

DNR Information Center

888-MINNDNR (888-646-6367) or 651-296-6157

Turn In Poachers (TIP)

800-652-9093

CWD test results

mndnr.gov/cwdcheck